Archival Word of the Week: fl.

Flower bedAbbreviation for the word ‘flourit’, ‘fluorit’, or ‘floruit’. The Oxford English Dictionary says ‘floruit‘, but you will probably see these variations, even on the Archives Hub, very sorry about that. Pronounced ‘floor-yuh-it’. When an index term for a proper name requires a date, but if neither the birth nor end date is known to the cataloguer, then the archival material being described can provide a date when its creator ‘flourished’, in the sense that they were obviously active, rather than at the peak of their career or somesuch. Illustration with apologies to Sonny Carter.